Ding!
by meg gara
Summary: One girl. Nine Seigaku regulars. Thirty minutes. The Seigaku Tennis Club regulars go speed dating.


Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis.

**Ding!**

by meg gara

The dating hall was full of feminine whispers and squeals. The cause of the said whispers and squeals were the Seigaku Tennis Club team who, through some cruel twist of fate (aided by a certain juice and Inui who was cruel in his own way), found themselves participating in a speed dating event.

"I heard they are all tennis players!" one of the girls whispered to her friends.

"And they're playing at the Nationals too!" another squealed.

"I've always wanted to date a jock!"

Fujiwara Yuri rolled her eyes. Sure, the long haired girl had to admit to herself that the nine boys looked cool and handsome. But except for the guy with the closed eyes and the redhead with the band aid, none of them looked particularly happy to be there.

And so it starts…

_Ding!_

"Hi!" Yuri smiled at the bespectacled boy who was her first 'date.' "I'm Fujiwara Yuri. And you are?"

"Sadaharu Inui," he replied as he adjusted his glasses. "It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too. Um, do you really have to wear your glasses? I can't see your eyes."

"I'm afraid I can't see without them. My eyes have been damaged with all the data gathering and drink making I have been doing."

Yuri's brows knitted. "Drink making?"

Inui grinned. "Yes, I like making drinks. But it's not half as much fun as making others drink it."

"Okay. Um… what else? Oh yeah, data gathering. So you like researching and stuff like that?"

"Yes, but enough about me. Let's talk about you."

"What about me?" she asks quizzically.

Inui opens his notebook and starts to read. "Fujiwara Yuri. 16 years old. Birthday is on May 15. Blood Type A. Hobbies are reading, walking her dog Lucky, and swimming. Favorite subject is English. Has a six year old brother named Kyohei." He looks up from his notebook. "Actually, I just need to get some data on your height and weight. Well?" Inui asked, with his pen poised on the paper.

Throughout Inui's recitation, Yuri became more and more panicked. Where the hell did he get all that data? "Stalker!" she thought.

_Ding!_

Yuri breathed a sigh of relief as Inui went to the next table to terrorize another girl.

"Hello," a male voice greeted.

Yuri looked to the guy in front of her. And she almost jumped out of her seat. The guy had a scary face and was wearing a bandana.

"Hello," the girl replied cautiously. "I'm Fujiwara Yuri."

"I'm Kaidohh Kaoru. It's very nice to make your acquaintance." And then he bowed.

"Well, even though he looks scary, he seems like a nice guy." Yuri thought to herself. "A gentleman."

"Nice to meet you too. What are your hobbies?" She asked.

Kaidoh thought for awhile. "I like to train and work out."

"That's it? You don't have other hobbies?"

Kaidoh shook his head.

"I don't like to exercise much but I like to swim. Umm… what about your likes?"

"I like kittens," Kaidoh admitted, blushing.

Before Yuri could reply to that startling revelation, a voice suddenly interrupted. "What's this? Viper is blushing!" Yuri looked at the source and saw another guy with tall spiky hair grinning at Kaidoh.

"Shut up! Don't call me Viper!" Kaidoh glared at the other guy.

"Viper?" Yuri asked.

"And what should I call a Viper but a Viper? Or should I call you Cobra instead?" The other guy continued to bait Kaidohh.

Kaidoh stood up. "That's it. You and me, outside!"

Yuri tried to stop the two. "Ano…"

_Ding!_

"Hello, I'm Syuichiro Oishi."

"Hi! Nice to meet you. So you're from the tennis team, right?"

"Yes. I'm the vice captain of the team, actually."

"Really? So that means you're a really good player huh?"

Oishi laughed and scratched the back of his heard. "Well, not exactly. It's just that I'm the one who ends up worrying about all the other guys from whatever trouble they find themselves into."

"You loud mouthed bastard!"

"Stupid Viper!"

The fight of Kaidoh and the other guy continued to escalate.

"Um, pardon me, I have to take care of something." And with that Oishi excused himself and tried to separate the two players. "Momo! Kaidoh! Stop that this second!" He scolded the two and sounding like a mother hen.

All Yuri could do was sigh.

_Ding!_

"Tezuka Kunimitsu. Nice to meet you."

"Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm Fujiwara Yuri."

Then silence.

"Do you like watching movies?"

"No," was the abrupt reply.

Silence.

"What kind of music do you like? I like pop."

"Classical."

For some reason, even though it was indoors, Yuri could hear crickets in the background.

She gave it another try. "Um, so you're a tennis player too, huh?"

"Yes."

"Your Boomerang Snake sucks!"

"At least my move has a cool name instead of just a stupid Dunk Smash!"

"Guys, you're disrupting everyone. Calm down. Kaidoh, put that chair down!"

"Momoshiro. Kaidoh. Fifty laps each when we get back to school." Tezuka said.

To Yuri's amazement, the two suddenly stopped trying to kill each other and went back to their seats (and dates!) quite peacefully. Oishi also returned to his seat.

"So you're the Captain," Yuri stated.

Tezuka looks at her, surprised. "How did you know?"

_Ding!_

Unfortunately, Yuri's next date was the other half of the duel of death.

"Hi! Sorry about that," the guy smiled sheepishly. "I'm not usually that aggressive. Viper and I just have this competitive thing going on. I'm Momoshiro Takeshi, by the way. You can call me Momo-chan." He added.

Yuri still was suspicious of the guy. After all, it was not long ago that he was threatening to do some bodily harm to another person until Tezuka stopped him.

"I'm Fujiwara Yuri. Nice meet you Momo-chan. So, what else do you like to do besides fighting with Kaidohh?"

"I love to play tennis, but that's a given since I am part of the team. But I also bike and love to eat. What about you?" Momoshiro smiled charmingly.

"I love to swim and I'm part of the swimming team at my school. I like to watch movies."

"I love movies too! What kind do you like?"

"Action films."

"Me too! Hey, have you watched the latest John Wu film…"

Suddenly his cellphone rang. Without a thought, Momoshiro opened his phone. "Hello?" Then he paled. "An-chan?"

From where Yuri was seating, she could hear the voice of a girl. A very angry girl, at that.

"The speed dating thing is all Inui-senpai's idea. He forced me to it!" Momoshiro defended. "It's not my fault! An!!!"

_Ding!_

"Hoi hoi!"

The redhead with the band aid that Yuri noticed earlier was her next 'date.' She said to herself before that he was one of the two who looked happy to be there, but…

"Ano… Could you stop bouncing around?"

"Nya! I can't help it! I get excited when I hear that bell go…"

_Ding!_

Yuri's seventh date smiled shyly at her.

"Hi, I'm Fujiwara Yuri."

"I'm Kawamura Takashi. It's nice to meet you."

Such a mild mannered guy, Yuri thought. It's hard to imagine he could be part of the rambunctious team with Kaidohh and Momo-chan.

"So besides tennis, what do you like to do?" Yuri asked.

"I help out at my father's sushi restaurant a lot. I'm not going to be playing tennis forever. I'm going to train and plan to be the best sushi chef in Japan someday." Kawamura replied, blushing a little at saying his ambition to the girl.

Yuri looked impressed. "It's nice to have an ambition in life. I still don't know what to do after high school yet, though."

"You'll figure it out someday," Kawamura said encouragingly.

"Thanks," Yuri smiled.

Suddenly a hand reached out and handed Kawamura a tennis racket. "You forgot something Kawamura-senpai."

Kawamura looked surprised but still took the racket. Somewhere in the background, Yuri could hear someone shouting, "No Taka-san!"

"BURNING BABY! COME ON! COME ON! SPEED DATING IS GREAT-O!!!"

Yuri sat back and stared at the once shy guy stand at the top of the table and wave the tennis racket around.

_Ding!_

"I'm sorry for my friend back there," the perpetually smiling guy said. "He just gets excited with a tennis racket in his hand."

"It's okay." Yuri looked at Kawamura who had calmed down since Oishi took away the tennis racket from his hands.

"My name is Fuji Syususke. What's yours?"

Yuri looked at Fuji. She was almost tempted to walk out after the last 'date.' But Fuji looked really handsome – there was something almost prince-like about him. And he seems to be mild mannered and had quite a nice smile.

What the hell, she thought. "I'm Fujiwara Yuri." She smiled back.

"It's nice to meet you Fujiwara Yuri. So what brings you here?"

"I got pulled in by my friends," she gestured to the other girls who were talking to the other tennis players. "But I was also curious about the whole speed dating stuff too."

"Yes, it's pretty interesting, isn't it? How within a few minutes you can get a feel of what a person is."

"Yes, exactly!" Yuri leaned into the table. "Do you have any other hobbies besides tennis?"

"I'm into photography."

"Really? So what kind of pictures do you take?"

"I like to take pictures of people," Fuji paused. "Especially my teammates and my brother Yuuta." He added.

Yuri was a little disconcerted with the slight widening of Fuji's smile when he mentioned about his favorite photography subjects, but she let it go. Fuji was the most normal of all of them so far.

"I also have a brother who's younger than me. He's a handful sometimes but we're generally pretty close."

"Yuuta is also bit younger than me. He's pretty annoyed at me most of the time," Fuji chuckles. "But I always look out for him. Especially against slime who bully him." When Fuji said the last part, he stopped smiling and opened his eyes, as if remembering something that was distasteful to him and made him angry. Then he returned back to his smiling self. "I'm sure that you feel the same way towards your brother, right, Fujiwara-san?" He continued with a tilt of his head.

It was only a few seconds, but Yuri was suddenly more afraid of what she saw in Fuji's eyes than Kawamura with a racket. She laughed weakly, "Um, y-yeah."

_Ding!_

"Hey, aren't you a bit young for this?" Yuri asked the boy in front of her.

The boy tugged his white cap lower. "That's what I said to them."

"So what's your name?"

"Echizen Ryoma."

"I'm Fujiwara Yuri. So what's a small guy like you doing with all these guys?"

"Tennis is tennis."

"What else do you like besides tennis?"

"Ponta and Karupin."

"Karupin?"

"My cat."

"I'm a dog person myself."

"Your hair is too long."

"I like it long." She replied with gritted teeth.

"Whatever."

Yuri forced herself to calm down. He's just a kid, she said to herself.

"Do you like to watch movies?"

"No."

Suddenly he reminded her of someone.

Ryoma covered his face with his cap. "Tell me when the time is up."

"Fine." Brat.

And Yuri sat there fuming. She was going to kill her friends for this.

_Ding!_

Finally! Yuri exhaled.

As Ryoma stood up to leave, he turned back to the girl. "Hey, Fujiwara Yuri."

The girl looked up, surprised. The boy was actually going to say something? "What?"

Ryoma smirked. "Mada mada dane." And he walked away, leaving the girl open mouthed in amazement at the obnoxiousness of the brat.

"Eh, don't worry about him. He's a brat."

"I know! Isn't he?" Yuri said to her tenth and final 'date.' Then she just stared.

"He is so uncute and doesn't know anything about girls. Tsk, tsk." The brown-robed monk leaned into the table. "I'm Echizen Nanjirou. And you, lovely lady, are?" He took Yuri's hand and started to kiss it.

"Oyajii!" Ryoma came back and snatched Yuri's hand away before Nanjirou could kiss it. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I can't let you young men have all have the girls to yourselves."

"Baka hentai!" Ryoma continued to shout at the guy. "I'm telling Mom!" Then he stalked away.

Nanjirou turned back to Yuri. "Well, where were we? Ah," he remembered and took Yuri's hand again.

Before Ryoma was out of the room, he looked over his shoulder and smirked. "Mom would probably burn all your magazines when she hears about this."

This caused Nanjirou to freeze. He then jumped out of the seat and ran after his son. "Ryoma! Stop!"

_Ding! Ding! Ding!  
_

Yuri, throughout the whole exchange, was frozen in shock. What are the odds of this happening to her? A stalker, a Viper, a mother hen, an ice cube, a two-timer, a bouncing guy, a schizophrenic, a sadist, a brat, and a dirty old man – all in the span of approximately 30 minutes.

The facilitator clapped her hands. "Okay, the date is finished. Write who you want to get to know a little better after this."

Yuri looked at the paper in front of her. There was only one thing that she could write. And she really wanted to write it.

THE END.


End file.
